Q:
I will say this about the revenant: playing in groups helps boost your character’s overall damage and buffs vs. playing solo. I noticed that when I was in the middle of the Baroness Jasmina events, where you have to protect the group of nobles from the hyleks. Cooperative gameplay has always been something I’ve admired about this game, but I didn’t truly appreciate it until I started testing the revenant.
That being said, I do have concerns that the revenant is not exactly my cup of tea. I’m fond of playing heavy DPS classes, and I expected the revenant to fall into this category as well, but I was surprised and slightly disappointed. It looks to me as if the developers are trying to create a class that’s equal parts stealth, force, and heal, and somehow, not all the elements are meshing together very well. I started my revenant with the two-handed hammer, which was unbelievably slow. For every one hit I managed, I was hit by the enemy at least three times. I eventually solved this problem (somewhat) by switching to two one-handed swords. This sped up my attacks considerably, although the Unrelenting Assault battle skill is difficult to use. It turns my character all around so that when it ends, I’m not facing my target anymore. Slightly annoying. Also, I don’t always dart back and forth quickly on my target; sometimes my character stays in one spot, crouching and blocking attacks. Which is great, because it does block attacks, but I thought it was supposed to assist me in attacking my target. That confused me.
I don’t know if the Mastery point system is supposed to be the new template for all classes with this upcoming expansion, but I will say it was extremely confusing for me to understand and use. Here is an example: throughout the Silverwastes, there are these “bouncy mushrooms” that are supposed to help you move from one area of the map to another, particularly if where you want to go is difficult/impossible to reach by foot. But when I attempted to use one, a pop-up box appeared, telling me I needed to train in using this “master” skill by spending a point under “Itzel Lore”. So I went to spend the point…and nothing happened. The training bar underneath the trait icon said “training”, but that was it. I went ahead and completed a few more events and earned some more points, but I could not spend those points on the bouncy mushrooms skill. I don’t know if this is a bug, or if there’s something I’m not grasping about the mastery system, but it needs to be more clear on what I need to do, and what my options are. I also don’t like how you have to “grind” to get the points in the first place. One could argue that leveling a character is “grinding”, in a way, especially since you’re deliberately progressing your character in order obtain more hero points, but the difference here is that the rewards don’t justify the efforts you put in to achieve the desired skill. After you level, you receive a bunch of hero points to spend wherever you like. For mastery points, you need to complete events/story elements/objectives/etc. to move your experience bar to the “full” point, and when it refreshes, you gain…one mastery point. Why just one? I’m thinking the developers may have wanted to introduce a system that’s above and beyond the hero point set-up and the skills obtained go much further than your standard boons from levels 1-79, but to me, it was very frustrating, especially since I was struggling to understand the nuances of a new class in unfamiliar territory. Obtaining these points became a tedious chore for me.
For the demo story, there’s only one option for you to choose when you’re debating about saving the remnants of the Pact fleet vs. fortifying the defenses. I clicked on Explorer Metella and saw as my response, “not available in this demo”. I understand that the developers don’t want to give everything away about the expansion, but I would have liked to have seen what my other options were in completing that portion of my story.
Here’s the bottom line: I’m getting better. When I first created a revenant during the first beta weekend, I was a complete mess and I ended up deleting the character after about two hours’ worth of gameplay. I’ve been paying more attention to my surroundings, reading what my fight skills are supposed to do as opposed to blindly marching out and attacking foes and hoping for the best, and I’ve persevered in completing events. I want to like the revenant, I really do. I see a lot of potential in this class (besides, Rytlock makes it look awesome. ;-) ) I just wish the mastery point system was more player-friendly, and more points could be awarded each time you level up. Instead of one point, maybe three? Something to make the grind worthwhile.